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Re: building from source advice



On Fri, Feb 06, 2004 at 01:43:08PM +1100, Rob Weir wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 06, 2004 at 12:21:00AM +0000, cyril said
> > Hi
> > 
> > as a Debian newbie (recent redhat convert) I could do with a bit of advice on 
> > handling any source builds on my server. What kind of issues should I be 
> > aware of if I choose to build some software from source on a stable Debian 
> > environment. 
> 
> If you build things from source, dpkg won't be aware of them, therefore
> apt will try to install them if something depends on them.
> 

Look at the equivs package, it allows to build fake packages that
provide the dependencies when you install programs using other means
then debian packages.

Another option is to learn how to package the program yourself.What I
sometimes do, although its a dirty hack, is to download the package
source and replace the original source code with the new source and
then build the package, which saves the time of debianizing it. This
will only work though if the maintainer hasn't made any big
changes. Make sure to change the changelog first and check the patches
directory to see what is applied and what should be removed.

> > For example I usually choose to build php / apache from source 
> > on my servers. 
> 
> Why?  The Debian versions of apache and php include all known security
> fixes, and pretty much all available modules.
> 
> -- 
> Rob Weir <rweir@ertius.org> | mlspam@ertius.org  |  Do I look like I want a CC?
> Words of the day:       Firewalls Clinton underground UOP Blowpipe VX nerve gas




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